Robert C. Baker
Robert C. Baker (December 29, 1921 – March 13, 2006) was an American professor and inventor in poultry science. He is best known for inventing the chicken nugget and for many other poultry innovations. He is in the American Poultry Hall of Fame for his contributions.
Born in Newark, New York, Baker earned a bachelor’s degree in pomology from Cornell University in 1943. He then earned a master’s in marketing from Penn State in 1949 and a PhD from Purdue University in 1956. He was a member of the Alpha Zeta fraternity.
Baker spent most of his career at Cornell University (1957–1989), publishing about 290 research papers. In 1970 he founded Cornell’s Institute of Food Science and Marketing and was named a fellow of the Institute of Food Technologists in 1997. He is credited with more than 40 poultry, turkey, and cold-cut innovations, earning him the nickname “the George Washington Carver of poultry.”
Inventions and contributions: He created the chicken nugget, published his nugget recipe in 1963, and was involved in developing a breading method for chicken, a deboning machine, and chicken and turkey hot dogs and turkey ham. He also developed “Cornell chicken,” a cider-vinegar-marinated grilled chicken popular in Upstate New York, and he created Eggbert, a talking animatronic egg, in 1953.
Personal life: He married Jacoba Munson in 1944, and they raised seven children: three sons—Myron, Dale, and Kermit—and four daughters—Regina, Reenie, Johanna, and Karen. He died of a heart attack in Lansing, New York, in 2006 at age 84.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 13:08 (CET).